Learning from Lebanon

From 12 July until 15 August 2006, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) waged a thirty-four-day war against the Iranian terrorist proxy organization Hezbollah in response to a well-planned raid by a team of Hezbollah combatants from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. That raid resulted in the abduction of two IDF soldiers, who had then been taken back into Lebanon for use as hostages. Code-named Operation change of direction, the greatly escalated counteroffensive that the raid prompted has since been widely regarded as the IDF’s most inconclusive combat performance in Israel’s history